“Hey,” the girl called Rinku greeted him with a smile. She walked up to Shwaan as he stood near the back of the office, looking at a bulletin board filled with newspaper clippings and grainy photographs which he assumed were of some significance to previous cases worked by the Hunters of the South Ragah Division. He had drifted from the main group when the conversation had shifted from the Ghorib case to the details of one of the cases the Hunters had wrapped up recently. He figured he might as well try and explore the place while he was there. If he was lucky, he might find something that would be of interest to Safaa.
“Hi,” Shwaan said with a smile of his own, turning to face the girl. As he spoke, he could see a harried-looking Faiz coming up behind her with a large stack of old, faded files in his hands. Shwaan moved towards the other man. “Here, let me help.”
Handing off half of his pile to Shwaan with a sigh of relief, Faiz grumbled: “I’ll never understand why we can’t just have all this stuff on the goddamn computers like everybody else. Dai’s paranoia is gonna be the death of me one day.”
“He’s only being careful,” Rinku said, her tone chiding. “What if the Aeriels got their hands on our records? Who knows what they could do with it.” Her dark eyes widened with imagined horror.
“Aeriels ain’t magicians Rinku,” Faiz said with a snort. “They can’t do anything with words on a screen that a human can’t. Hell, us puny mortals could probably do it much better than those medieval bastards. All they’re really good for is blowing things up. That’s why there’s so few of ’em left. Comes with the territory when you never fucking die, I suppose. You never really end up learning anything new either. Dumb as bricks, most of ’em are.”
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“But they’re Aeriels,” insisted Rinku, as if that simple fact superseded any argument that Faiz could present in favour of digitalising their records. “They can do anything!”
“Well we wouldn’t be here if that were true, would we?” said Faiz. “We here are the living, breathing testaments to the fact that Aeriels can’t, in fact, do anything. Sure they’re strong. But we’re stronger. The Founding Fathers did not free the earth of Aeriel tyranny just so that we could live in fear and show our bellies at the first sign of danger. The fight against those bastards is not just physical, it is psychological,” he declared.
Entertaining as it was, Shwaan thought he should stop the matter from escalating into a full-blown fight. “That is very true Faiz,” he nodded at the young man, trying his best to look impressed. Then, turning to Rinku with a bright smile, he asked in the most charming, heavily accented voice he could muster: “Would you mind showing me around the office, Miss Rinku? Really, it is a most fascinating place. I have never seen anything like it,” he widened his eyes dramatically for emphasis. “I’m sure my countrymen would be very impressed with everything the Vandrans have achieved in our never-ending battle against the Aeriels.”
The girl’s eyes lit up. “Of course, my lord! Our armours are the strongest there are and our sifblades are the sharpest in the world, not just the country,” she said proudly. “You’ve never seen anything like them!”
In that moment, Shwaan was rather fiercely grateful that he hadn’t.